Transgender Day of Visibility Q&A With Assistant Professor Kasey Jackman

Assistant Professor Kasey Jackman, whose works focuses on the prevention and treatment of mental health disparities among sexual and gender minority people, answered our questions regarding these health disparities and shared how his work impacts the transgender and gender diverse community in honor of Transgender Day of Visibility on March 31. 

What health inequities do transgender and gender diverse people experience?

Transgender and gender diverse people experience a range of physical and mental health inequities. Although our understanding of the full scope of the inequities is incomplete due to lack of widespread data collection about gender identity, studies indicate the health inequities include chronic health conditions, disabilities, HIV/AIDS, substance use, depression, anxiety, suicidal thoughts and behaviors, and nonsuicidal self-injury. However, this group also has many strengths and sources of resilience including peer support, pride in identity, and engaging in advocacy on behalf of the transgender and gender diverse community.

What do we understand about the causes of these inequities?

Minority stress theory is one of the main ways we understand how these inequities arise. Minority stress refers to chronic additional stress due to stigma from transgressing societal gender norms and expectations. This stigma operates at various levels including experiences such as discrimination, harassment, and violence which lead to internal factors like expecting rejection, concealing one’s identity for fear of harm, and internalizing negative societal attitudes about transgender and gender diverse people. All of these factors cause chronic stress which contributes to the health inequities we see.

What can nurses, and the field of nursing, do to advance equity for transgender and gender diverse people?

Nurses are extremely important to advancing equity for transgender and gender diverse people. Nurses at all levels of clinical practice, education, and research can advance health equity in multiple ways in every setting and role. As a few examples, clinical nurses can use the correct name and pronouns to refer to their patients and advocate for other healthcare team members to do the same. Nurse educators can include content about transgender and gender diverse people in all courses, for example in the context of social determinants of health, health disparities, physical assessment, sexual and reproductive health, etc. Nurses conducting research can include demographic items that assess gender identity to improve our understanding of the health of this population. All nurses can avoid assuming that everyone is cisgender and keep in mind that gender is not a binary system, that is, people have gender identities apart from man or woman. Many gender identities exist!

Could you talk about your own work as a clinician, researcher, advocate, and educator to promote transgender visibility and equity for the LGBTQ+ community overall?

My own work takes many approaches to advancing health equity for the LGBTQ+ community, and for transgender and gender diverse people specifically. As a researcher my scholarship focuses on LGBTQ+ mental health, and in particular identifying modifiable risk factors for self-injurious thoughts and behaviors in order to develop culturally tailored interventions. 

As a nursing instructor I teach about LGBTQ+ population health and assessment of sexual orientation and gender identity in clinical and research settings. As a psychiatric nurse practitioner I work with transgender and gender diverse patients to provide gender affirming and culturally informed mental health care. I am the co-founder and co-chair of the LGBTQIA Health and Health Disparities research interest group in our regional nursing research society where I mentor emerging nurse researchers and collaborate with colleagues at other universities engaged in LGBTQ+ health research. These are just a few of the many ways I work toward health equity for LGBTQ+ people – a mission I find both professionally and personally rewarding!